THE REDBIRD REVIEW
Hello. I’m your writing man again today, setting up my laptop in my home office. I live in the neighborhood near Washington University. A block south from where I sit was the one-time home of William Inge, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist. His famous literary home runs include Picnic, Bus Stop, Come Back Little Sheeba, Spring Holiday, and Farther Off From Heaven. And Inge wrote, or at least drafted, all of that and more in the home near mine.
Inge’s friend Tennessee Williams used to hang out with Inge in the home close to mine. Well, so what? My friend Derrick Goold frequently visited my home to record episodes of the “Best Podcast In Baseball.”
Tennessee Williams or Derrick Goold?
I win!
Later in life, after Inge moved far from here, he won an Academy Award for his screenplay of the famous film, Splendor In the Grass – starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood.
I think Splendor in the Grass was about baseball, or something …
Anyway, that’s my not-so-clever way of introducing today’s column on the St. Louis Cardinals. I’ve decided to monitor spring training by looking at at least one question each weekday. Hey, I don’t have a Come Back, Little Sheeba in me … but I can write about who should bat leadoff for the Cardinals.
So, who should bat leadoff for the Cardinals in 2026? Based on the current St. Louis roster, there are four options. And two of them are better the others:
1. Lars Noootbaar
2. JJ Wetherholt
3. Masyn Winn
4. Victor Scott II
LAST SEASON, A RECAP
Let’s begin with this – and just a note that PA stands for plate appearances. As a team, the 2025 Cardinals were terrible at the leadoff spot. Nootbaar had the most PA as the No. 1 hitter (436), and Brendan Donovan was next with 236 PA. Winn got a few looks at the top but had only 46 PA. There were scattered leadoff-man at-bats for Scott and Thomas Saggese.
In 2025, St. Louis leadoff men collectively batted .234, had a .315 onbase percentage, slugged .354, and posted the worst OPS (.669) among the 15 National League teams. The primary assignment for a leadoff dude is to get on base as much as possible, but the Cards’ No. 1 hitters ranked 12th in the NL in OBP. When the offense stinks at the top, the flaw makes it even more difficult to get something going offensively.
Let’s zero in on each leadoff candidate, shall we?